MINING NEWS.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 223, 8 October 1887, Page 3

MINING NEWS.

We flip tlit following from a recent i«sue oi tiie Utrtgo Witr.oss : — Professor Hutton's lectures at tho Thames School of Mines were attended by appreciative audiences. Ho threw out tup s'J^j^e.stion thut if the money spent in [>eri [intone lecLures wetc devoted to (wo [>cmiaiient school*, one at the Thames Mid tiu other in Keefton, it would lie spent (o letter purpose. During his visit to the district Profe-sor Hatfon visited the alluvial goHfi-'ll discovcre I in the Waitoa district, and sujierintended the getting out of several parcels of the ilepo&it at quarter-mile distances, which when tested at the YVaiorongomai battery, yielded at the rate of £14 worth ol bullion to the ton of stuff, some *255, and the other nil. It is said 15a would pay handsomely. In travelling through the Waitoa district, I had a look at the spot. It is certainly an extremely unlikely place for gold to be found, and the decomposed beds of pumice through which the gold is diffused have bithertto been deemed the least likely strata to look for gold ; bub after the way in which the scientists gave themselves away in their predictions about tho Lower Thames goldfleld, there is no accounting for anything. One singular fact about the thing is that not a speck of gold has hitherto been seen in any pan washings that have been made, although the assay tests, as above quoted, are conclusive. At the Waiorongomai goldfield a great mining enterprise is being proje«ted with the aid of a London syndicate — two tunnels, two miles in length, being intended to be driven into the heart ot the mountain on the mother reef of tha reefs. At the battery's works, an American rotary furnace is nearly completed for roasting the oro before further treatment. Twelve thousand tons of tailings, tho accumulations of years, are to be re-treated in this rotary furnace, when at least £1 per .ton of bullion is expected to be secured. The irtroduction of the rotary furnace is expected to benefit not only the Battery Company — of which Messrs J. 0. FirJi and J. M'Codi Clark are the proprietors — but the quartz mining communities throughout the colony where quartz of kindred qualities to the Waiorongomai ores are to be found. The tunnel scheme above referred to has been investigated by the most eminent engineer in the colony, who has pronounced it to be the bestdevised plan of operations that he ha^ seen throughout the Australasian colonies.

A Highlander, who had committed ,i furious assault on a fellow-countryman was appiehended and taken before the magistialc. On being found guilty he w.is Rcntenced to pay 10.s Gd or to go to prison for fourteen days. Ho chose the former alternative, and on paying 1 the fine, laid beside it another half-guinea, saying, ' She'll pay you the same ten an' seex jeest now over again, for she'll gif her twice more when she getsoot.'